NPR: Kristol on McCain: 'I'm Not an Adviser'

Kristol on McCain: 'I'm Not an Adviser'

A media culpa.

Earlier, I wrote a blog item inspired by a variety of reports from respected news organizations (Arizona Republic, Washington Post, and most recently, last weekend, the McClatchy newspapers) saying that conservative commentator William Kristol is an informal foreign policy adviser to presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain. I asked a simple question: why wasn't that disclosed in Kristol's columns on the presidential race in The New York Times?

Kristol himself offers a simple answer: he's not an adviser to the McCain camp. (Charles Kaiser of Radar online was on McClatchy's case, with this exchange with Kristol. McClatchy's Warren P. Strobel, who wrote the article last weekend citing Kristol, told Radar this: "I was told by folks in the campaign that he was among those who provide advice in the campaign. I never said he was a paid 'adviser.")

"Of course, do I talk about foreign policy with John McCain? Yes. Do I talk about foreign policy with John Kerry? Yes, I do," Kristol says. "I'm not an adviser to the campaign like people who are formal advisers like Max," a reference to Max Boot, of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Los Angeles Times.

Kristol is the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard and a frequent political commentator on the Fox News Channel. "I don't normally endorse people," Kristol says. "I obviously have my views, which are not particularly disguised. I agree with McCain more than John Kerry --- but I am not on the campaign, or anyone's campaign."

Kristol also says he's not a frequent date for any major politician -- he says he talked about foreign policy over coffee with Senator Kerry in 2003, ahead of Kerry's presidential run, and he's spoken to McCain once in the past five months. As for those reports that he was an unpaid, even informal adviser? "I don't know where that comes from," Kristol says.

-- David Folkenflik

5:36 PM ET | 02-13-2008 | permalink

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